


To Save a Man's Life

by ladykiki



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 01:17:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4941136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladykiki/pseuds/ladykiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You will save a man’s life,” the Oracle told Jensen, before he left the Temple at Delphi. Oedipus!Jared, sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Save a Man's Life

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Trope_bingo for my au: fairy tale/myth square. My apologies to Sophocles.

“You will save a man’s life,” the Oracle told Jensen, before he left the Temple at Delphi. His promised service to Apollo was completed. One day, he thought he would return, finish out the last of days in Temple, but for now he wished to see more of the world, parts he had glimpsed only in tales and song. 

“See more of the world” was about the extent of his plans, however, the day he left Delphi, walking because his conscience wouldn’t let him take from that which belonged, by rights, to Apollo. He let his feet carry him where they would, over cobbled streets and hard-packed earth, scored with wheels of chariots and churned by horses’ hoofs. 

The sun caressed his skin, as it had seemed wont to for time out of mind, warm without burning; though, as the hours passed, he became thirsty and regretted leaving the city proper for the country without a waterskin from which to slack his thirst. Grass rose and fell in verdant knolls on either side of the causeway, but he could see naught in any direction and couldn’t tell how much further he would have to walk to reach a homestead or village and thought he might have better luck on the road, if only someone coming past would stop for a weary traveler. 

By the time the third chariot had passed, his feet felt sore and blistered, his tongue thick, and he was convinced the hospitality of Greece had waned. Likewise, he thought it likely he should perish ere he’d seen more of the world than his own backyard. He was tempted to lie down in the path of the next chariot to thunder past. 

“Mayhap the life I save will be my own,” he mused. Though only if the chariot stopped. 

The thunderous clatter of hooves and wheel suddenly rose behind him. Jensen’s heart rate kicked up in fear and anticipation. He stepped out into road before he could think better of it, waving his hand over his head for the driver’s attention. For a long, breathless minute, he thought the charioteer would not stop, would simply run him over and continue on. But then the horse’s hooves slowed and Jensen was able to take a deep breath.

“Ho!” the man called, pulling to a stop only as he came even with Jensen. He wore rich linens in vibrant, if unusual, colors. His hair had been shorn to about the tops of his ears, curling slightly where it fell over them, and had bleached in the sun. His eyes sparkled, bright with more than the sun, and Jensen felt a tingle at the base of his spine. 

Prescience, it wasn’t, for no vision rushed before his eyes, but—a possibility, perhaps. 

“Hullo!” the boy called, for though he was tall, as Jensen was able to see when he jumped down, his limbs were still colt-long, his exuberance youthful. “Where is your chariot, friend? Have you lost it?” He grinned, bright and disarming, and Jensen found himself smiling in return. 

“Nay. I set out on foot, poorly provisioned.” He spread his hands to demonstrate, and saw the boy’s eyes follow the motion, taking in his empty hands and dirty feet. “I did not even think to bring water, as you can see.”

“There, you are in luck,” the boy proclaimed. He dug into the packs secured at the bottom of the chariot and came back with a filled skin. “Might I know your name, if we are to break bread together, friend?”

“You needn’t,” he said, brandishing the skin. “This is more than enough, thank you.”

“Do you say that because you don’t want to break bread with me? Or because you don’t want to tell me your name?”

Jensen laughed, as startled by the boy’s impudence as his impishness, for there was no other way to describe his expression. “Neither, friend,” he allowed. “I am called Jensen. But I can offer you nothing in return for your hospitality. Though, if you could tell me how far to the nearest village, I would be most grateful.”

“Where is it you intend to go?” Tristan asked. “If you don’t mind telling me.”

Jensen opened his mouth, closed it. “I had not yet decided.”

Tristan nodded, as if the answered confirmed something for him. He said, “Come with me. Break bread with me and ride with me, to the next village or beyond, and offer me your company. I have been to the Oracle, and she told me I would kill my own father and marry my own mother. I am determined I shall do neither, so I have left all I know behind me. It would be a greater comfort than I could ever repay if you would come.”

He faced the road to Delphi, his back to the unknown he had sought all the morning, and stared into bright, multi-hued eyes. 

“Please say you’ll come,” Tristan entreated, stepping close enough Jensen could make out the golden flecks in his eyes. 

“You don’t know me.”

“That is why we shall break bread!”

“In the middle of the street?”

As if his words had conjured them, Jensen suddenly heard another chariot approaching behind him, and again he felt the tingle of prescience at the base of his spine. He braced himself, but no vision swallowed his sight. Instead, anger echoed, distant and muted, like a dream, and the coppery taste of blood slicked the back of his tongue. 

A bright smile curled Tristan’s lips. “Does that mean you’ll do it? You’ll come with me?”

The chariot was bearing down on them. Panic clawed at his guts, climbing up his throat, and he could not say why, only that it was important, and important that Tristan get off the road. “Yes!” he said. “So long as you do not mean to do it in the road.”

Tristan laughed. He jumped back in chariot, pulling Jensen up with him for no reason Jensen could fathom, clicked his tongue, and urged his horse off the road onto the grass. He could have walked the distance as fast as Tristan drove it, and not had to catch his arm around Tristan’s waist and the chariot’s side when they bumped down from the road into the tall grass. But Jensen couldn’t honestly say he minded the close quarters, and if he intended to travel with Tristan he had best begin getting used to it. 

“You’ll not regret this,” Tristan declared. 

The oncoming chariot rolled past, the thunder of hooves drowning out anything Jensen might have said, never slowing.

“You will save a man’s life,” the Oracle had said. Staring into Tristan’s eyes, Jensen thought, if he could just save that man’s life, it would be worth it.


End file.
